Now We Can Get Discounts For Vista.

Chronogical Blog Entries:

Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:33:07 +1100

In an effort to boost the flagging sales of Vista, Microsoft have started
discounting. Earlier today, it was officially announced that Vista Home
Edition will be discounted to USD $129. This has triggered reductions
everywhere. According to CNET, some outlets are advertising Vista at (USD)
$99.

No doubt, spammers who offer pirated software will also have to reduce
their prices. Many of them were offering Vista for $89.00 only a month or so
ago. In order to remain competitive they may have to cut their prices by a
similar ratio. They should still retain a fairly healthy margin on their
product however.

Still even if you can now buy (basic) official Vista software for $99, you
might hesitate before actually making the purchase. Provided that you can
decide whether you want Basic, Premium or Ultimate. And even if you settle for
the Basic offering, it's still $99 more than the fully-featured, very powerful
Ubuntu, which comes with its own Office software, web kits, development kits,
security software and will run as a server or workstation. Considering only
features and performance, if Microsoft was going to compete effectively with
Ubuntu, they would be paying us to install Vista.

Of course no one is really purchasing Vista anyway. Almost all the Vista
installations are on new machines shipped by major vendors. But it's nice see
that Microsoft pretend that they have customers and that they care about them.

Also in the USA, there has been a conviction for spamming. Apparently,
this becomes a precedent. After his case has gone through many appeals, Jeremy
Jaynes becomes one of the first US citizens to be convicted of the felony of
spamming. The supreme court decision was close, 4-3. The reason for the close
decision were the concerns that some of the judiciary have about the vague and
potentially far-reaching implications of recent anti-spam legislation in the
USA. My reading of this is that they probably would have been quicker to
convict him, were it not for the rather over-zealous and potentially
repressive CAN-SPAM act, that was recently passed to prevent spam.

Admittedly, I'm no lawyer ... but I'm not convinced that it now becomes
easier to convict spammers. The fact that some judges expressed reservations
about the anti-spam act would imply that sooner or later, someone might mount
another legal object to this draconian legislation on constitutional grounds.

IMHO the problem with the CAN-SPAM act and similar legislation is that it
is like trying to fight a plague of insects with a machine gun. Most spammers
are working for criminals, who using spam to advertise their wares. So
prosecuting people for advertising criminal activity only highlights some
serious problems with the legal system in general. If criminals are now so
bold that they advertise their criminal activities, then maybe there are too
many laws? (Or not enough police?). Certainly something seems to be broken.